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Fareed Zakaria Goes 0-4 on Obama

RUSH: We have some Nic Robertson-like sound bites. Not from Nic Robertson, but it is Nic Robertson all over again: Nic Robertson down there at Tahrir Square (which is a circle) asking Mustapha and Ahmed during the uprising in Egypt, "What is your message for President Obama?"

"He doesn't care about us. My message for Obama is: Where's he been?"

Nic Robertson then went down to Ahmed. "What is your message for President Obama?" Same thing. At the end of those reports, Nic Robertson said, "Well, as you can plainly hear, the sentiment here in the square in the center of Cairo is very happy for the involvement of President Obama!" So yesterday, on his own show, Fareed Zakaria: GPS, he spoke with Egyptian student activist Sarah Abdelrahman about President Barack Obama's Middle East speech on Thursday. Fareed Zakaria said, "Sarah, what did you think of President Obama's speech?"

ABDELRAHMAN: The US foreign policy, I believe, was -- is -- completely inconsistent when it comes to the region. Also, they decided very last minute to support the people of Egypt during our revolution. We got hit with tear gas and then we pick it up after, you know, the tear gas has completely taken over our bodies and we see the mark, "Made in USA."

RUSH: Okay. So, Fareed Zakaria all for one here because you know he's hoping for adulation and idolatry and all kinds of love for Obama from Sarah Abdelrahman, but all she could say was: Well, hell, tear gas was thrown at us and we saw it was made in the USA when the canisters were empty. So Fareed Zakaria tries another. He spoke with human rights activist and lawyer Razia Amran about Obama's Middle East speech on Thursday. He said, "What I thought President Obama was trying to do, was to present the broad picture and say, 'Look, in general we support all these movements. Of course they're gonna be differences, of course there are gonna be specific policies,' but he was trying to say, 'The United States is broadly in support of Democratic reform everywhere.' Did that not ring true for you?"

AMRAN: To tell you the truth, I was not impressed, and I didn't expect to be impressed like I was not impressed when he came to Cairo and gave the speech. If you analyzed what he said about Israel and what he said about the other countries, completely inconsistent.

RUSH: Fareed Zakaria, batting cleanup after (like Nic Robertson) he's 0-for-2, tries now for a third. Student activist and law student Noor Nour. That's spelled: N-o-o-r is the first name, N-o-u-r is the second name, but both pronounced same. Student activist, law student, Noor Nour, Zakaria, so, "Noor Nour, what did you think of Obama's speech?"

NOUR: I, like Razia, was not impressed (snickers), I was not expecting to be impressed simply because Obama's very good with words. If anything, the US Foreign Office is very good with words and horrible with actions.

RUSH: Fantasy! Exactly what I said earlier: Fantasy. So Fareed Zakaria 0-for-3, outdoing even Nic Robertson. Finally a fourth: He goes to the cleanup guest, Fareed Zakaria talking to Waleed Rashid about Obama's Middle East speech. Zakaria says, "You guys are being very hard on Obama. What would you say, Waleed?"

RASHED: You know, that I didn't speak, I didn't discuss it with Noor, but really I have the same comment, that, to be honest with you, Obama have a... He have a very good... He's a very good in speeches and in body language and like that, fine. I like it so much. But you can't keep promising me every day. If you would like to speak about us, you must speak about us from our position, from our view.

RUSH: Well, Waleed Rashid essentially said to Fareed Zakaria that Obama's speeches are meaningless. So 0-for-4. That's what I'm gonna say: Start screening these people! If you're gonna go into Tahrir Square to find protesters loving Obama, you talk to 'em first before you put 'em on. But what this showed... I'm sure they have bookers. You know, I've told you about this, folks. I don't go on these shows anymore. Two times on Crossfire is all the education I needed. What happens is they book you as a guest on the show and then somebody, a producer calls you up, and they do the preinterview -- and I, like a naive dummkopf, the first time believed that they were genuinely interested in what I had to say and was going to say; that they were genuinely interested in what I thought.

So they're asking me these various questions, and a couple them were just outrageously offensive and stupid, and I reacted as such. That's what they want! They were searching for questions that would cause me, in their mind, to have an eruption. They weren't interested in anything else, and I remember the first time I did Crossfire, it was a total setup. It was with Kinsley and Robert Novak, and it was a total setup. They had me, and I forget the guy's name. He was a liberal host from WLS Chicago way back in the late eighties, and they wanted ostensibly to talk to us about some issue of the day, and instead it was a show on the dangers of talk radio to democracy -- the irresponsibility of voices on talk radio -- and this other guy...

I wish I could remember his name. We ended up being united against Kinsley on this show 'cause we realized that we'd be sandbagged and used. So that was it. It happened once on the Today show, and that's where I had the falling out with Katie Couric. I had spent the weekend in the White House and spent the night in the Lincoln Bedroom with George H. W. Bush and Katie Couric wanted me on to find out what it was about and as I started answering her questions, she started smirking. The camera was not on her, so I stopped and said, "See? See? You're smirking. You didn't want to hear what really happened," and she reacted violently. "No, I was not smirking at you! I was smirking at what somebody was telling me in my IFB," and ever since then, it's been frosty between The Perky One and me.

After that, forget it. Because I now know the trick, I know the game. The last thing they want is what you really care about. So, I can't believe this happened. They've got these pre-interviewers; they've got these bookers. How in the world they know what Fareed Zakaria, the host of the show, wants. He wants some sycophants in there. They're gonna talk about Obama being the greatest thing since sliced bread to US foreign policy, and they go 0-for-4? Maybe they don't have the bookers. Maybe there have been budget cuts. Who knows? After all, we are in Obama -- or maybe these guests are sophisticated maybe they know exactly what I know. They know what they have to do to get on this show and when they get there, they tell the truth. That probably is the more likely of the two scenarios.